Firstly, thanks @jmckenna for putting the QGIS.ca website together. This is a huge step forward!
Secondly. This morning, I was finally talking to a UQAM Geography GIS fellow teacher about the involvement of the academic world in this QGIS group and state of GIS open-source in Canada
They also told me we could maybe have a conference room for meetings here in Montreal UQAM main campus and we could pan and coordinate one of our QGIS Users Canada conferences next to the GIS-Day in November…that could be really interesting.
They are all into open-source and QGIS!
Finally, I was wondering if we could carry out a first constitutional meeting by the end of this summer. Any ideas?
I have also created a new organization on GitHub, and moved the website repository there (and made you a co-owner of the organization): QGIS Canada User Group · GitHub I moved it there to encourage help and contributions from others (the qgis.ca website is minimal at the moment, a single file, but over time it can be expanded of course, and definitely bilingual, so having it live in a repository for the whole user group to edit is better in the long-term). Help wanted! (anyone wanting to contribute please let us know, or make a pull request, we are happy to give full permissions there ha).
Wow that’s great news of the interest of the Montreal UQAM academic team (I really like that goal of a QGIS Users Canada conference next GIS-Day at that campus!)
As you said, short-term we should plan an initial virtual meeting, for everyone interested in attending, where we can discuss the formal creation of the QGIS user group here in Canada. We need to discuss registering as a non-profit org at the federal level (I believe there is a cost for that around $200, and the cost of an initial name search).
I think we should plan this initial kick-off virtual meeting (one hour in length) soon, possibly next month. Options (which one do you prefer?) :
Thurs July 16th (10am Pacific, 1pm Eastern, 2pm Atlantic)
Thurs July 23rd (10am Pacific, 1pm Eastern, 2pm Atlantic)
Thurs July 30th (10am Pacific, 1pm Eastern, 2pm Atlantic)
Maybe the goal could be to have the entity registered by September, and then we can inform the QGIS project steering committee & request formal status, and have another virtual meeting in September (maybe with a QGIS presenter/demo from someone interested).
What do you think? (feedback from all is welcome here ha)
I will post a POLL on Linkedin to ask members to choose themselves the best date for the kick-off meeting. Participating in a poll is the first step to get involved into something, right?
By the way, @jmckenna I made you manager of the LinkedIn group just in case (I am still the owner)
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–
Jeff McKenna
GatewayGeo: Developers of MS4W, & offering MapServer Consulting/Dev
co-founder of FOSS4G
-EN-
Tomorrow July 16th, 2026 we will have our first QGIS Canada Users Group meeting at 10am Pacific, 1pm Eastern, 2pm Atlantic.
Please use the following link to join us: https://lnkd.in/gPY3ZKTm
Looking forward!
-FR-
Demain, le 16 juillet 2026, nous tiendrons notre première réunion du groupe d’utilisateurs QGIS Canada à 10 h (heure du Pacifique), 13 h (heure de l’Est) et 14 h (heure de l’Atlantique).
Veuillez utiliser le lien suivant pour vous joindre à nous: https://lnkd.in/gPY3ZKTm
Au plaisir de vous voir!
I would also add some other points we discussed in no specific order:
goal to request approval from QGIS.ORG to become an official user group (before we have an event or use the QGIS logo in materials)
goal to select a member of our group to become a voting member for QGIS.ORG
possible goal for the user group to become a “Sustaining Member” of QGIS (to help support QGIS)
One question/point that I forgot to mention in the meeting: we need someone to “champion” announcing our meetings etc on Facebook, as QGIS has many active groups there. (I’m not that champion there though, ha)
Also, the item “register as a non-profit” is a big one, as it will force us to draft by-laws for the entity, and have a yearly Annual General Meeting (AGM) for our ‘members’.
(I realize that could be a separate thread discussion, but it’s important to mention here, that the registration is not just paperwork, we’ll have other tasks, ha)
Agreed. (I needed a logo for the GitHub organization, so I had quickly
created an SVG made in Gimp, see QGIS Canada User Group · GitHub ). Maybe we
need a new repository there for our proposed logo & branding.
-jeff
We’ll also have to think about a proper QGIS Canada logo.